Jane Miller: Martinsville has baffled Biffle, but he's ready

Thursday

Mar 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 27, 2008 at 8:05 PM

In the Fast Lane column: Greg Biffle is running second in NASCAR Sprint Cup points coming out of the Easter break, but this week's venue is not one of his favorites. “Martinsville, over the years, has not been my best track,” said Biffle, “but certainly the last couple of times I've been there, I've gotten tremendously better. I remember the last race there I was bumping on the back of the 48 car for the lead, so that was the highlight of my (Martinsville) career, if you will, and I finished seventh, so I'm really looking forward to going back this week.”

Jane Miller

Greg Biffle is running second in NASCAR Sprint Cup points coming out of the Easter break, but this week's venue is not one of his favorites.
“Martinsville, over the years, has not been my best track,” said Biffle, “but certainly the last couple of times I've been there, I've gotten tremendously better. I remember the last race there I was bumping on the back of the 48 car for the lead, so that was the highlight of my (Martinsville) career, if you will, and I finished seventh, so I'm really looking forward to going back this week.”
Four top-10 finishes in the first five races have Biffle 30 points behind leader Kyle Busch in a season where no team or driver has been dominant - yet.
“I think it's the car,” Biffle said of the new design that debuted last year.
“The playing field has been leveled a little bit simply by the fact that there's less we can do with this car.”
Biffle added that if a team gets a little bit off with this car, it can fall of dramatically - and vice versa.
“You can go from being one of the faster cars to trying to stay on the lead lap all of a sudden,” he said. “And we've seen that with the 48 (Jimmie Johnson). The Gillette Evernham cars, like Kasey Kahne, I've seem him a lap down almost at every race and then at the end, he's right there.”
Getting the Points
This is the week the top 35 in owner points is based on this year's results, and Kyle Petty now finds himself well outside that magic number.
He's 40th in the points heading into the weekend.
“I have a lot of experience at Martinsville, and that should help us qualify our way into Sunday's race,” Petty said. “This is not an enviable position to be in, but I have a good team around me, and we can dig our way out of this. We just need a little bit of good fortune, more than anything.”
Unfortunately for Petty, this is not the first team he's been on the go-or-go-home list.
“I've been in this situation before and we've come out just fine,” he said. “We're more than capable of hitting a streak where we get a string of top-10 or top-15 finishes. Martinsville would be a good place to start one.
“This is a top 35-team, and we'll show everyone that.”
Petty isn't the only driver now finding himself on the outside looking in. Caterpillar-sponsored Dave Blaney is 37th in points.
“Obviously, we're not where we want to be points or performance-wise at this point in the game,” Blaney said. “But we've done quite a bit of testing this week (Monday at Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, N.C., and Tuesday and Wednesday at Nashville), and we've got more planned for next week, so we're hoping we'll hit on something that will help.”
Changes
A couple of teams used the off week to make crew-chief changes.
Bobby Kennedy will take over on Michael Waltrip's car, switching roles with Paul Andrews.
Gene Nead left the No. 21 Wood Brothers car to return to an engineering job at Bill Davis Racing.
Back on Board
Mustang Cat was the first dealer to support Rod Fuller's NHRA Top Fuel effort a year ago, and this week at Houston its back on the car again.
“They helped get things started last spring, so we're forever indebted to (them) for making this program work,” said Fuller, who now has full-time Cat sponsorship.
Fuller is fourth in the Top Fuel standings heading into the fourth event of the year.
Trucks Debut
Chrissy Wallace, the 19-year-old daughter of NASCAR driver Mike Wallace, is scheduled to make her debut in the Craftsman Truck Series this weekend at Martinsville.
Jane Miller is the Peoria Journal Star motorsports columnist. Write her at 1 News Plaza, Peoria, IL 61643, call (309) 686-3207 or e-mail jmiller@pjstar.com.

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